Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an environmental lawyer and controversial anti-vaccine activist, has been tapped to lead the Department of Health and Human Services in President-elect Donald Trump's second term, although his views on vaccines, fluoride and other health issues have raised concerns about his potential influence over federal agencies like the FDA and CDC.
Despite criticizing Trump's diet as "poison," a viral photo from Saturday shows Kennedy posing with Trump, his son Donald Trump Jr. and billionaire Elon Musk, eating at a table full of McDonald's food on the president-elect's plane.
"The stuff that he eats is really, like, bad," Kennedy said during an interview on The Joe Polish Show. "Campaign food is always bad, but the food that goes onto that airplane is, like, just poison. You have a choice between — you don't have the choice, you're either given KFC or Big Macs. That's, like, when you're lucky, and then the rest of the stuff I consider kind of inedible."
On his quest to "Make America Healthy Again," Kennedy has vowed to protect Americans from harmful chemicals, pollutants, pharmaceutical products and food additives that have contributed to the country's health crisis. Although he has no plans to ban fast food outright, Kennedy has eluded to how he would try to make it healthier, and that could mean big changes coming for McDonald's and other popular restaurants.
One of the biggest changes Kennedy has said he'd push is the elimination of seed oils -- like the canola-blend oil McDonald's uses to cook its fries -- which are often found in ultra-processed foods and can lead to inflammation and disease.
Instead, Kennedy thinks frying oil should be made from beef tallow, a rendered form of fat. While frying with beef tallow can give food a hearty, beefy flavor, it would certainly change the taste of certain items at McDonald's.
"Did you know that McDonald's used to use beef tallow to make their fries from 1940 until phasing it out in favor of seed oils in 1990? This switch was made because saturated animal fats were thought to be unhealthy, but we have since discovered that seed oils are one of the driving causes of the obesity epidemic. Interestingly enough, this began to drastically rise around the same time fast food restaurants switched from beef tallow to seed oils in their fryers," Kennedy wrote in an October Instagram post.
"People who enjoy a burger with fries on a night out aren't to blame, and Americans should have every right to eat out at a restaurant without being unknowingly poisoned by heavily subsidized seed oils," he added. "It's time to Make Frying Oil Tallow Again."
Meantime, the American Heart Association maintains that there's "no reason" to avoid seed oils and encourages their consumption as part of a heart-healthy diet.
McDonald's without soft drinks? There's a chance it could happen with a crackdown on sugary beverages, including sodas like Diet Coke that use sweeteners like aspartame.
Kennedy has promised to take down "big food" for using additives like artificial sweeteners and food dyes, which he blames for causing a wide variety of illnesses and diseases, from obesity and cancer to attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder and autism in children.
"We are betraying our children by letting these industries poison them," Kennedy said at a campaign rally in Arizona days before Election Day. "74% of Americans are obese or overweight. We didn't suddenly become lazy and gluttonous. We are being mass-poisoned by corrupt industry."
Another change could affect McDonald's shakes and soft serve, and it has nothing to do with the machines breaking down. Kennedy is a big proponent of raw milk, which hasn't been pasteurized to kill harmful bacteria such as E. coli and Salmonella. He has suggested loosening restrictions around the beverage, causing concern from health officials who say raw milk can expose people to potentially life-threatening germs.
In an Oct. 25 post on X, Kennedy accused the FDA of "aggressive suppression" of a number of substances, including raw milk.
"FDA's war on public health is about to end. This includes its aggressive suppression of psychedelics, peptides, stem cells, raw milk, hyperbaric therapies, chelating compounds, ivermectin, hydroxychloroquine, vitamins, clean foods, sunshine, exercise, nutraceuticals and anything else that advances human health and can't be patented by Pharma," he wrote. "If you work for the FDA and are part of this corrupt system, I have two messages for you: 1. Preserve your records, and 2. Pack your bags."
Of course, it's anyone's guess at this point how any of this will play out, as Kennedy still faces the challenge of being confirmed by the Senate. While his focus on improving children's health and criticizing big pharma is supported by some, others have expressed concern about the impact on safety regulations.